To Be an Afternoon
by Elafi Milo
Summary: April 23, 1996. Pooh and his friends have been waiting for a long time.


**Author's Note: I guess I moved the restoration of the toys back a few decades. Sorry, history.**

Pooh felt strange, but he always felt strange these days. He had something wrapped all around him. Before he had felt very loose around the edges, but then they had wrapped this around him, and it was strange, but it felt better than the looseness.

This wasn't the Hundred Acre Wood, nor Christopher Robin's windowsill, nor the bathroom, nor the stairs. Pooh had been here for some time, but it didn't feel homey, like those other places had.

He wasn't alone. Kanga was there, although not Roo for some reason, and Tigger was there, and Eeyore, and Piglet. It was nice to have them there with him in this unfamiliar place, but Pooh occasionally wondered when they were going to go home, and where home had gone while he was distracted.

Pooh had an important job. He was, as he knew, a Bear of Very Little Brain, but he remembered that Christopher Robin had knighted him, and that it was his job to keep an eye on Christopher Robin. Christopher Robin made it very difficult, though, on account of his not appearing. So Pooh's job was to look for him, for now, so as to be able to watch out for him later. There were always many, many faces, but so far none of them had been Christopher Robin.

Another face loomed before Pooh's, but it wasn't the face he was looking for, so Pooh looked around again. There were more faces than usual, he thought, and that thought made him feel even stranger under the dark mesh.

"Is it him? Is it Christopher Robin? Is it him?" Tigger was the only one who asked anymore with any sort of excitement in his voice. It was getting rarer, too; these days it was far more common for him to complain about how little space there was, and how much he wanted to go outside, and where was roo, and he'd enjoyed their quest for the North Pole and could they do it again.

Pooh sighed. "No," he replied to Tigger, who looked as if he would like very much to bounce on someone but knew it wouldn't be good manners at all. "No, it's not Christopher Robin. I thought it might be, but it wasn't."

Piglet sighed too. "When is he going to come? Pooh, it's—"

"Christopher Robin isn't coming back," said Eeyore, in the tone of someone who has been trying patiently to explain something for a very long time. "He's never coming. He's forgotten us. You should do the same, so we can all get on with what we ought to be doing."

Pooh knew better than to believe _that_. Eeyore was clever, of course, far cleverer than Pooh, but it struck Pooh that in some things, Eeyore really knew very little. So he ignored him, returning his attention to the people outside.

So it was that, when Christopher Robin's name was mentioned by one of the people outside, Pooh heard it, and started listening.

"Did you hear? Christopher Robin Milne is actually dead. He died over the weekend."

" _I_ know. Why do you think I'm here? I used to come here a lot, but my new job is closer to the Riverside branch. But when I heard, I had to come back, you know? As a tribute, you know?"

"Yeah. What, um, what do you do?"

"Oh. Actually, I, um, I teach at, ah, Juilliard."

Pooh stopped listening to them, since it didn't seem like the people were going to talk about Christopher Robin anymore.

"What's 'Milne'?" he wondered aloud.

Eeyore, of course, responded instantly. "It's another word for 'Christopher Robin,'" he said in his _I know it's you, Pooh, but really!_ voice.

"Oh," said Pooh humbly, wondering how, in all this time, he hadn't known that, and Eeyore had. "I see. Thank you, Eeyore."

"Kanga, what's 'dead'?" asked Tigger.

"I don't know, dear." Kanga sounded distracted, as she always did nowadays. "Pooh, do you? Piglet?"

"Maybe it means 'wonderful'?" Piglet sounded doubtful, and his words came slowly.

Eeyore's voice was even more subdued than usual. "I don't think that's what it means, little Piglet."

"You're right," said Pooh. "It doesn't sound that way."

"Then I've no idea. Do you, Pooh?"

"No, I don't know either." Pooh's fur itched, and he wished the dark mesh weren't there so he could scratch properly. It seemed to Pooh that he didn't really know anything anymore. He wished he could think of a song so he could sort out his thoughts, but the poetry wouldn't come, and there had been no music in him for a very long time.


End file.
